Ruby on Rails: Custom getter or custom helper

Question

I want to display a default avatar image if someone has not added a photo. I'm assuming I need to either do a custom getter in the model or a helper.

If I did the getter would it look something like this:

def avatar_url
  "default_url" unless self.avatar
end

Answer 1

Use the read_attribute method to detect the presence.

def avatar
  read_attribute("avatar") || default_avatar
end